1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to a collision detection system for a vehicle that can check whether a collision has occurred using the impact detection sensors of a vehicle and determine whether to operate at least one device for protection against collision-related injury.
2. Related Art
Various types of devices for protection against collision-related injury are installed in vehicles in order to protect driver/passengers against injury caused by collisions. Representative examples of such devices include an airbag, a device for fastening up safety belts, and a device for manipulating a seat to protect the backbone. Whether to deploy such a device for protection against collision-related injury is determined by the control unit of a collision detection system.
With reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, a conventional collision detection system for a vehicle will be described below. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing the sensors of a conventional collision detection system for a vehicle. The conventional collision detection system measures impacts in respective directions using the left sensor 10 and right sensor 20 of the front part of a vehicle and the detection sensor 32 and safing sensor 34 of a vehicle sensor unit 30. Of these sensors, the detection sensor 32 measures impacts attributable to front and side collisions of a vehicle, transmits them to a control unit, and checks, using the safing sensor 34, whether the detection sensor 32 is operating erroneously. The reliability of the system is guaranteed by checking one or more impacts again using the safing sensor 34 even when the impact or impacts measured by the detection sensor 32 exceed a predetermined value or values.
FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the construction of the conventional collision detection system for a vehicle. The conventional collision detection system for a vehicle includes the sensor unit 30 and a control unit 50. The sensor unit 30 includes the detection sensor 32 and the safing sensor 34. The control unit 50 determines whether to deploy a device for protection against collision-related injury on the basis of the impacts measured by the detection sensor 32 using a collision determination algorithm 52, and ensures the reliability of the system on the basis of impacts measured by the safing sensor 34 through a safing module 54. Only when the measured impacts satisfy both the collision determination algorithm 52 and the safing module 54 is the device for protection against collision-related injury deployed.
However, since the conventional collision detection system for a vehicle checks the reliability of the system using the separate safing sensor 34 in addition to the central detection sensor 32, the conventional collision detection system has problems in that the manufacturing cost thereof is high and a large number of manufacturing steps are required.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.